Culbreath: What the hell is happening in Cleveland?

That was the question I got multiple times this week. And rightfully so, as Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam announced that team CEO Joe Banner and General Manager Mike Lombardi were no longer with the team. Assistant GM Ray Farmer would get promoted to the GM job, and the CEO position would remain vacant for the time being.

How do you shake the Three Stooges moniker? Fire two of ‘em.

Now, I don’t like to dip into the rumor mill, because we don’t know what’s legitimate and what’s made up. But piece them together, and you get a tapestry that explains what’s happening in Berea.

Taking what we know is fact: when it came to the two coaching searches the Browns have held under Haslam’s watch, they’ve been brutal. Remember how the reports before the 2013 season were that they were negotiating terms with Chip Kelly? That didn’t happen. Ken Wisenhunt, Bill O’Brien, Adam Gase? Swings and misses. Taken on fact alone, you can see that Banner and Lombardi were simply not closers. Chudzinski was a “settle” hire, as was Pettine.

The rumor mill paints an uglier picture. Reports of Banner and Lombardi getting into fights during interviews scared some prospects away from the team. Nobody seemed to be on the same page. According to Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, 3 prospective hires took themselves out of the running after their interviews because of the dysfunction. If you believe Peter King of Sports Illustrated, the nail in the coffin was the last-second talk with Greg Schiano for the coaching vacancy. Haslam was “intrigued”, Banner was not, and acted like a petulant child throughout the process. Now, I’m not a fan of Schiano, and I’m guessing Banner was trying to save face from the team. But when the boss is intrigued, you at least play along.

Now, remember when I said earlier that the CEO job was going to sit empty? There’s another rumor that really piques my interest, not because of the implications of it being true, but in that it provides an insight to the new owner.

According to Cabot, she thinks that Haslam might be waiting on a Super Bowl XLVIII losing quarterback to retire, and offer him the job. Why Peyton Manning would take a front office job in Cleveland, I don’t know. You’d think he’d take a job in Indy or Denver (or heck, even Tennessee) before the Browns. Then again, I never thought Steve Yzerman would become GM of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The likelihood of that ever happening, in my eyes, is slim to none. Just as the rumors of Jim Tressel taking the Browns job needed a healthy dose of “what exactly does he gain by doing that”, I’m not sure Peyton wants to start his front office career in a work-in-progress like the Browns. But the fact that it’s even a thought tells me one thing about Haslam: he does not buy into the notion that Cleveland is inferior. In a league where players can dang near pick where they want to play, he’s hell bent on at least trying to build a team on the shores of Lake Erie. I do think he realizes he doesn’t have all of the pieces he wants, and I’m not even sure if Farmer is a guy who he thinks can help the team build. He needs a veteran in the front office if they’re going to start making the right calls. But the term “patience” isn’t in his vocabulary right now: at this point he’s trying to identify the main problems, and most fans think he’s knocked a few barnacles off the ship this week.

Amato, owner of T-shirt company JUPMODE, is now selling his, “You will do better in Toledo” shirt and his other popular Toledo pride T-shirts out of a multicolored truck he just bought two months ago.

The Perrysburg native said he plans to park the 24-foot-long truck at fairs, festivals and Downtown art walks to sell his wares and spread the “love” of Toledo.

“It’s a really creative and unique idea,” Amato said at his company headquarters in Perrysburg. “The whole purpose is to generate excitement, to spread love and Toledo pride, to share in the nostalgia of Toledo.

“People really are proud of Toledo because it’s a shared history and culture.”

Most of Amato’s business is wholesale and online and he hopes the truck will attract more customers who want his Toledo pride T-shirts, hoodies, drink koozies and stickers.

“You will do better in Toledo” and “We’re strong for Toledo” are Amato’s most popular shirts. He also sells shirts featuring the Tony Packo’s logo and two styles featuring the Buckeye Beer logo — which are so new they aren’t on the website yet — plus Lion Store, Tiedtke’s and Toledo Troopers shirts.

“Toledo was a great city and it still is,” Amato said. “There’s a lot more happening in Toledo than people give it credit for and I just want to be a part of the movement.”

His shirt “Someone in Toledo loves me” is highly popular with out-of-towners, he said. He fills orders regularly from Chicago and Columbus and has sold shirts as far away as Hawaii.

JUPMODE — which stands for “Jupiter” and the word “mode,” meaning fashion in French — is one of the premier Toledo pride T-shirt sellers in the city. The company has been in business for seven years, two at its current location in a strip mall in Perrysburg.

John Amato, owner of T-shirt company JUPMODE, sells his Toledo merchandise from a new truck. Toledo Free Press Star photo by Danielle Stanton

Amato got his start when he created a “sweater vest” T-shirt based on the style of Jim Tressel, former head coach of The Ohio State University football team, who wore sweater vests while he coached.

With that success, Amato expanded into University of Toledo and Bowling Green State University shirts and also became licensed in Michigan. His biggest customers are families, schools and businesses that buy wholesale.

After a friend recently spotted a T-shirt truck in Chicago and after observing the success of food trucks, Amato decided to go for it. He found his truck on Craigslist and added a window for customer purchases. Maumee-based CGS Imaging did the vinyl wrap.

The truck became fully operational the day before Thanksgiving. Amato parked it at The Shops at Fallen Timbers for Thanksgiving weekend and plans to be there every weekend in December.

“We think it’s a unique idea that has a wide application,” he said, adding that if the truck idea fails, he’ll at least have a new delivery truck.

More Toledo pride

Another Toledo pride T-shirt vendor, Max Reddish of Reddish Printing, said his goal is to not only promote his company but also to promote the city.

He sells his wares every Saturday at the Erie Street Market, at festivals like the Old West End, at various street fairs and online at reddishprinting.com.

“My goal is to be at events so that the shirts draw people to the events,” Reddish said. “Selling T-shirts is obviously a goal; I want to make money but [another important] goal is to get people out enjoying Toledo.

Reddish’s screen-printing company, located on the East Side, prints his flagship logo “Boring people hate Toledo.” He also prints “Wholly Toledo,” “Proud Toledoan” and simply “I like Toledo.” He has seven or eight Toledo pride designs, he said.

Reddish’s Toledo pride runs deep: He grew up in Toledo, lives in Toledo and earns a living in Toledo.

“I’m a Toledoan who makes shirts for Toledoans,” he said.

Tim Marshall and his wife Becky run Glass Wear, a company that celebrates their love of Toledo. Their Toledo pride T-shirts can be found at street fairs, the Arts Commission’s Art Walks, online at glasswear419.com and most recently at Handmade Toledo’s Maker’s Mart, where they sold 162 shirts — half of what they normally sell each month, Marshall said.

For every shirt they sell, they donate 13.6 pounds of food to help fight hunger in Toledo as part of Glass Wear’s partnership with local nonprofit Food for Thought.

Glass Wear even has a T-shirt, “This shirt provided 13.6 pounds of food to a Toledo family in need.” Marshall said it’s not a top seller but people do buy it.

Glass Wear started donating a portion of each sale to Food for Thought in July. They have averaged 900-1,000 pounds of food donated through their T-shirt sales per month but donated almost 4,500 pounds just in the month of November, Marshall said.

“We do it because we believe in Toledo and we want to give back,” Marshall said. “It’s not just a feel-good thing, it’s something we really believe in.”

Glass Wear is gearing up for the holiday season. On Black Friday, sales weren’t that great with about six orders as people shopped the mall instead, Marshall said.

On Black Friday weekend, Marshall did double the usual giving, donating 27.2 pounds of food per T-shirt sold. On Cyber Monday, they gave a 10 percent discount.

“We don’t really run a lot of sales because we give so much,” he said.

Glass Wear’s most popular T-shirt, the “Home” shirt with the shape of Ohio as the O, ships out of state every day and has been delivered to at least 40 states, including California, Florida and New York, Marshall said.

“It’s just insane,” he said about the out-of-state popularity.

The first eight T-shirts listed on his website are new designs, including the “Longitude and Latitude” shirt, the “Love Box” and the “419 Skull and Bones.”

“We try to roll out new designs every quarter and keep it fresh,” he said. “Last quarter, we did eight new designs.”

Marshall conducts a lot of his business via social media, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. He also provides a delivery service in which he meets customers at local coffee shops, eliminating shipping costs. In one week, he delivered shirts to 15 people, he said.

“We want people to love the city as much as we do,” Marshall said. “If you don’t like it, fix it. … Let’s be a part of the process that makes it better.”

Altvater: Tressel deserved standing ovation at ‘The Shoe’

The 2002 BCS National Championship Ohio State Buckeye football team was honored Nov. 24 at the Horseshoe during the Michigan-Ohio State game.

Jim Tressel was the head coach of that team and was asked to be present with the team.

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It was speculated that Tressel would decline but evidently he was convinced to attend and was the recipient of a standing ovation and riotous roar from the Buckeye faithful.

Tressel is an Ohio guy. He comes from an Ohio football coaching lineage. His father, Lee Tressel, was a successful high school coach before becoming the head football coach at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea. Jim learned the coaching craft on the fields at Baldwin-Wallace watching his father conduct practices and run a college football program.

Jim Tressel was even an all-conference quarterback for his father at Baldwin-Wallace during his college years.

Tressel honed his coaching style as the head football coach at Youngstown State for 14 years from 1986-2000. He won four NCAA Division 1-AA Football Championships while at Youngstown State. In 2001 Ohio State came calling, looking for a replacement for John Cooper.

Tressel got it. His teams were 8-1 against rival Michigan. He understood the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry that Cooper was never able to embrace.

For that reason alone Tressel will go down in history as one of the greatest of the 23 Ohio State head coaches of all time.

Under Tressel’s guidance Ohio State won the 2002 National Championship and appeared in three BCS Championship games. His overall record at OSU was 94-22 (.810) and included six Big Ten Conference titles.

He was forced to resign after NCAA investigations found infractions against players that had traded memorabilia for money and tattoos. Pretty serious crimes against man in these troubled times.

Under his tenure Tressel restored Ohio State football to the lofty status that it enjoys today.

The university as a whole and the athletic department benefited greatly from his time as the head coach.

He received a great tribute Nov. 24 at the OSU-Michigan game in “The Shoe.”

Back 9: I’m Mad as Hell!!

I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore! I’m mad at Terrelle Pryor for breaking a stupid NCAA rule and selling his OSU memorabilia to get tattoos. I’m mad at Jim Tressel for not following correct reporting policies to the NCAA when he learned of the stupid violations. I’m mad at the NCAA for all the stupid minor rules that they enforce when it’s convenient for them. It wasn’t convenient last January to suspend Pryor and the other four Buckeyes when they were about to play in a bowl game. They decided it was way more important to keep the Bowl committee and the sponsors happy while maintaining big TV ratings to keep the money rolling in for everyone except the kids playing the stupid game. As long as the bowls, the universities, and the NCAA are making money everything is just Jim Dandy.

Jim Tressel’s resignation as the Head Football Coach at “the” Ohio State University and the subsequent reporting of NCAA rules violations in every sports media venue in the world is driving me crazy. My weekly copy of Sports Illustrated arrived in the mail and predictably there is Tressel with white dress shirt, gray OSU tie, and his signature red sweater vest on the front cover. His expressionless face is staring straight ahead not allowing anyone to see what is really going on behind the tinted lens of his prescription glasses. The cool, calm head football coach and master of planning and execution on the field made a error in judgment of massive proportions off the field that has cost him his dream job and has left the university and its millions of fanatic followers out in the cold and at the mercy its football rivals.

The PGA Tour is in Dublin for the Memorial at Muirfield Village this week and the first question posed to Jack Nicklaus in his Tuesday press conference was about the Tressel situation. The lead story Monday morning on Golf Channel’s Morning Drive was about Tressel and the OSU football program. I have had to take ESPN off my favorites button on the TV remote. For the love of Woody Hayes, what ever happened to the baseball season, the NBA and NHL playoffs?

I have to admit I have enjoyed the past 10 years with Coach Tressel at the helm. He personified class, seemed to always be under control and brought a sense of continuity and confidence to the program that had been nonexistent for some years. His record was impeccable, especially the 9-1 record versus that “school up north”, three appearances in the BCS Championship game and the 2003 National Championship. If you aren’t the Pope or Billy Graham the “Holier Than Thou” image only works for so long. Tressel’s Mr. Clean persona has fallen in a very large mud puddle.

There were some bumps along the way, remember Maurice Clarrett? Over the years there were also some rumors about cars and other unsavory activities among players, as well as, some murmurs about recruiting inconsistencies that affected some assistant coaches, but with Coach Jim in the office, everything was under control, no major problem, nothing to worry about. What in the wide, wide world of sports happened? How could it all go so wrong?

Tress liked to grind out a lead and then turn the game over to his defense, very predictable, very safe, no frills. How could someone so adverse to risk on the football field risk it all for a couple of less than bright football players. Everyone knows the stakes. The visibility and money generated for a university through Division 1 football is astronomical. Alumni are lured into enormous donations to ensure that their alma mater continues to keep up with the other big boys in competition. It’s the American Way. We’re Number One!!

Jack Nicklaus seemed to have expressed it the best. Tressel as the benevolent father tried to protect his players’ indiscretions. Just like any father would do for his children. Tressel was doing business as it was done 20 years ago. However, with the ever present internet, facebook, and twitter, it ain’t the same today. The offense committed was relatively minor, the non-reporting and eventual cover up is a horse of a different color. How can some 19 year old kids selling a few trinkets for tattoos create such a mess?

When the story broke a couple of months ago about irregularities in the reporting of the NCAA rules violations of Terrelle Pryor and the other four football players by Tressel, actually the non-reporting, it seemed inevitable that Tressel’s days were numbered. 13 other Division 1 coaches had committed similar offenses and all 13 had lost their coaching jobs. It’s kind of like an elderly family member that has to go into hospice, you know what’s coming but it still hurts when the final announcement comes. I have spent the last couple of months with a terrible disappointing, almost sick to the stomach feeling. Neither large dosages of Miller Lite nor Pepto Bismol seemed to provide any lasting relief.

Ohio State has become the butt of every bad joke and now the reputation and conduct of the sports department has been completely destroyed. Fans, students, and alumni will suffer for some time to come.

USA Today references TFP article on Tressel

In her June 1 column,”Is Tressel’s OSU exit a scandal for evangelism via athletics as well?” USA Today writer Cathy Lynn Grossman references the December 2009 Toledo Free Presscover story written by Sports Editor Chris Schmidbauer. In “Tressel’s game plan for sports and life includes God,” Schmidbauer interviewed former Ohio State University coach Jim Tressel about his religious faith and its impact on his coaching. Tressel resigned as OSU coach on May 30.

Buckeye nightmare: Tattoo-gate just won’t die

It has been more than a month since the school announced that head football coach Jim Tressel was aware that players had selling memorabilia in exchange for tattoos and other gifts.

Usually with time, due in large part to a short attention span by the public, the major stories seem to fade into the background and become part of the rich tapestry of our subconscious.

But with yet another story being reported on April 20, Tattoo-gate still seems to be alive and kicking.

The latest report dealt with an update on the ongoing investigation surrounding Tressel and the fallout from the now infamous press conference that was conducted during this past March.

There wasn’t any form of a bombshell that came from the story outside of the fact that Tressel’s $250,000 fine probably won’t cover the cost of the investigation, but one quote did stick out when reading the story published by the Associated Press.

When referring to the situation surrounding Tressel and the five players involved in the NCAA scandal, Smith was quoted as saying that, “It’s a nightmare.”

The phrase itself isn’t that revealing. Anyone in Smith’s shoes would likely say the same thing, but the Freddy Krueger scenario reaches far beyond any potential violations that will be dealt with by the Buckeyes.

Golf legend and Ohio State alum Jack Nicklaus informed reporters at a fundraiser for the annual Memorial Tournament held in the Columbus suburb of Dublin that he feels that “Jim Tressel is taking the fall.” Nicklaus went on to say that while he is not privy to any information that the media is not aware of, he thinks Tressel is a “good guy” and made allegations that he believes Smith and university president Gordon Gee knew about the involvement of players selling merchandise to tattoo parlor owner Edward Rife.

As hurtful as the Golden Bear’s comments to Smith might be, he isn’t the only one talking about the situation. Gee got in the act this week after he talked with the Ohio State student newspaper “The Lantern” to apologize for his ill timed joke at the March presser. The phrase “I’m just hoping the coach doesn’t dismiss me” might be the epithet on Gee’s tombstone when everything is all said and done.

If you need further proof of the zombie like qualities of the Tressel saga head on over to Google. After conducting a simple search of Jim Tressel, there were over one million results that were returned. I am going to hypothesize that there was far less just two months ago and there were probably fewer ones calling for the head coach of Ohio State to be fired too.

Whether fortunate or unfortunate, Smith has been the one left to take the brunt of the fallout from Tattoo-gate.

Tressel has been able to focus on spring practice which will wrap up on April 23 with the annual spring game. While there may be the occasional query into the pending NCAA investigation, the Vest has been able to focus on football and preparing his team for life without him for five games next season.

Gee’s natural domain is academia and not rooted in the sports realm. There are far more pressing situations like the university’s commencement and overall university problems to get lost in then worrying about any verbal gaffes made earlier this spring.

Smith has been the point man for questions regarding the case. He was peppered with questions in the AP article about every angle of the ongoing investigation. For Smith, there is no other world to escape in to.

There is just this behemoth of a story: Tattoo-gate and all the problems that surround it and it is not showing any signs of going away anytime soon.

Whenever the final verdict on the NCAA violations are passed down, it might be another dark day in Columbus for Tressel and the Buckeyes.

But forgive Gene Smith if he has a little smile come across his face. He will just be happy that his personal “Groundhog Day” may be coming to an end.